


Question of the Day

by FireNationResident



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: (but only a little don't worry), (technically but they're really only enemies for like 5 seconds), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bi awakening, Bisexual Sokka (Avatar), Emo Zuko, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up Together, M/M, Soft boys being soft, Sokka (Avatar) Has ADHD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:54:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27632360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireNationResident/pseuds/FireNationResident
Summary: Sokka and Zuko meet in middle school because both of them are disasters, and the rest is history.ORThe story of Sokka and Zuko's coming of age via little snippets.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 151





	Question of the Day

**Author's Note:**

> Just for context:  
> -Both of them are the same age.  
> -I changed the age when Zuko gets his scar (I wanted the scene to be handled with a certain level of maturity by Sokka that I’m not sure he would have had at 13)
> 
> Also, disclaimer:  
> I have nothing against literary analysis, English teachers, or John Green. In fact, I am a fan of all three. I just think that the quote "Maybe okay will be our always" is a little bit funny 😳

**~AGE 12~**

Middle school sucked. For most people, but especially for Sokka. He hated sitting still for such long periods of time, and whenever he fidgeted, his teachers and peers glared at him. One kid in particular had a glare that made him feel like the kid was literally trying to set him on fire with his eyes. The kid’s name was Zuko. Sokka did not like Zuko, no matter how pretty he found the golden eyes that were glaring at him.

To make everything worse, at the beginning of every English class, which Sokka’s first class of the day, mind you, his teacher, Ms. Wu, gave the class a mini pop-quiz on the literature they were currently reading in class called the “question of the day.” The questions were always terrible and unanswerable, and everyone hated them.

One day, after another horrible question of the day, the class began presenting their book reports. Sokka was zoning out and fidgeting, as usual, when suddenly, in the middle of a girl’s book report presentation on _The Fault In Our Stars,_ he heard a snort-laugh. The girl had just finished trying to explain the significance of the quote “Maybe okay will be our always” when someone in the class started laughing, starting with a snort and dissolving into uncontrollable giggles.

Sokka, along with the rest of the class, whipped around to see who was laughing, and his gaze landed on _Zuko_ of all people. Glaring, golden-eyed Zuko. Zuko, who he had never seen smile in his life. Of course, as soon as Zuko realized all eyes were on him, he tried to suppress his laugh, a bright red blush forming on his cheeks, but it was too late. Sokka had seen another side to the boy, and he couldn’t help but find him endearing.

Sokka, a self-proclaimed joke master, promised himself that he would make Zuko laugh like that again. He would make this boy his friend. He could tell there was so much more to him than his glares.

At lunch that day, Sokka searched the lunchroom to find Zuko and found him sitting alone in the corner of the lunchroom drawing in a sketchbook. Sokka grinned, excited to start Operation Befriend Zuko, and quickly walked over to where Zuko was sitting. When Sokka sat down with a loud _plop_ on the chair across from Zuko, he earned himself another one of Zuko’s famous glares.

“What do you want,” Zuko spat, his eyes narrowing.

Sokka shrugged, “You just looked like you could use some company.” Apparently, this was the wrong thing to say because Zuko glared at him even harder, if that was even possible. 

“I don’t want to be your little charity case,” he snapped. 

Sokka started to get a bit flustered by how horribly his plan was going so far, but he was nothing if not determined, so he plowed on.

“You’re not a charity case. I just don’t think anyone would enjoy sitting by themselves in a corner every day,” Sokka responded.

“You don’t even know me. Maybe I like being alone,” Zuko retorted. Sokka held back from rolling his eyes. Could this boy be any more emo?

“Fine,” Sokka sighed, “but I still need to sit somewhere to eat my lunch, so can I stay here?”

“Whatever,” Zuko said, his eyes already back on his sketchbook.

For a few moments, Sokka picked at his lunch, trying to figure out how he could still successfully pull off his plan, but the silence was killing him. Sokka had never been very good at silence.

“Dude, I hate those stupid ‘question of the day’ things. Like what was Ms. Wu even asking when she was all ‘what does nepenthe symbolize in ‘The Raven’?’ I don’t even know how to spell the word ‘weird!’ How does she expect me to understand symbolism?!” Sokka needed to vent, and he hoped this was some common ground he shared with the boy across from him. Everyone hates the “question of the day,” right?

Zuko just stared at him, but Sokka could have sworn he saw his lips twitch before he said, in a perfect deadpan tone, “Question of the day: Why did Homer name the hero in _The Illiad_ Achilles?” 

Sokka grinned. Was this a joke? Was Zuko joking with him?

“Easy,” Sokka replied, “Achilles rhymes with chilies, which are symbolic of the duality of mankind. Question of the day: If there are three balls in a basket, what is the meaning of life?”

Zuko scoffed. “42, obviously.” A real smile began to grow on Zuko’s face as he continued, “Question of the day: If the square root of 4 is two, why does the grass grow?”

“You know, Zuko,” Sokka said, suddenly serious, “I think that, maybe, the ‘question of the day’ will be our always.”

Zuko snorted and giggled, just like he did before, and Sokka thought to himself that maybe Operation Befriend Zuko was the best plan he had in a long time.

**~AGE 16~**

Sokka’s stomach dropped as he climbed onto the roof of Zuko’s Uncle’s house. He didn’t know what he was expecting, maybe some sobbing, some yelling, but definitely not the emptiness behind Zuko’s eyes. That was the first thing Sokka noticed. The second was the bandages covering half of Zuko’s face. Sokka had never seen him like this before, so far from the gentle, passionate boy he knew. Anger coursed through him as he realized what Ozai had done.

As soon as Sokka had gotten the news that Zuko had been kicked out of his house, rushed to the hospital, and was now going to live with his Uncle Iroh, he rushed over. When he had arrived, Iroh had warned him that Zuko might lash out, that this was worse than anything Ozai had done before, and Zuko was understandably shaken, angry at himself and at the world while trying to suppress all of these feelings because they hurt too much. He might try to isolate himself, Iroh explained, but he needs a friend now more than ever.

It was early evening, and the sun was just beginning to go down. Sokka made his way across the roof towards his friend and sat down next to him silently. Zuko did not acknowledge Sokka’s presence in any way, but Sokka knew that Zuko saw him.

Finally, Zuko spoke, “I didn’t think he’d actually do it.” He was so quiet, Sokka had to strain to hear him, but the crack in his voice was unmistakable.

Sokka took Zuko’s hand in his, a silent show of support. It hurt Sokka to see Zuko like this, but he also knew Zuko well enough to understand that he didn’t want pity right now. He might want some comfort, but more than anything else he wanted normalcy. So, Sokka decided to do what he did what he always did: joke around a little bit. He was the meat and sarcasm guy after all.

After a few minutes of silence, Sokka spoke up softly. “Hey,” he said, lightly squeezing Zuko’s hand.

Zuko looked up slowly, meeting Sokka’s eyes for just a moment before glancing away. At the moment their eyes met, Sokka saw a tint of sadness, and he wanted to do everything he could to make it go away. But he knew this was deeper than him. He needed to give Zuko the time and space to feel however he felt, no matter how much it pained Sokka to see him like this. So, Sokka would keep normalcy up as much as possible and try to lighten things up, not because he thought he could fix everything, but because he wanted Zuko to feel understood, to understand that although he felt like his world was collapsing, he still had people who cared deeply for him. What had happened to Zuko didn’t change a thing between him and Sokka.

“Question of the day,” Sokka said, resuming their tradition. If anything could show Zuko that things hadn’t changed, it was this. Ever since the day they met, Zuko and Sokka had asked each other a “question of the day” in order to get to know each other. After a certain point, though, when they knew just about everything there was to know about each other, the “question of the day” became more of an inside joke, a little thing that they shared.

“Which is cuter, a turtleduck or a baby saber-tooth moose lion?”

This coaxed a small smile out of Zuko, and for now, that was enough

  
  


**~AGE 18~**

Sokka was in love with Zuko. It really wasn’t his fault; he didn’t even realize it was happening until all of sudden, he was in love with his best friend. He couldn’t pinpoint when exactly it began. All he knew is that one day he was sitting next to Zuko on the floor of his bedroom, laughing about something stupid, and everything clicked into place. Memories of desire surged into his mind: wanting to hold Zuko’s hand, wanting to hold him in bed when he was sad, wanting Zuko to rest his head on Sokka’s shoulder just so he could feel the rush of butterflies Zuko always gave him.

The thing is that before that moment, Sokka didn’t even know that he was attracted to guys. What did this mean? He had always been attracted to girls before. Hell, he had girlfriends before, but now he was in love with a boy. Maybe both could be true. 

He was filled with so many conflicting emotions: uncertainty, excitement, and then the crushing realization that there was no guarantee that Zuko felt the same way. The weight of the realization was crushing, but Sokka was in too deep to not give this a chance anyway.

The next day, as he was hanging out at the local boba place with Zuko, he tried to push through his doubt and build up the courage to ask Zuko if he felt the same way. He tried to find the words in his head, but none of them felt right. It was like writing a paragraph over text just to delete the whole thing and start again.

Sokka eventually decided to test the waters with a generic question on the safe ground of a question of the day. Did Zuko like boys? Yeah, that was the solution: frame it as a question of the day. Maybe if he was attracted to boys too, they could explore this strange new world together, like they always did. Maybe it didn’t have to be so scary. Nothing ever seemed all that impossible with Zuko by his side.

“Hey, Zukes?” Sokka asked, sounding uncharacteristically timid. Zuko’s head popped up from where he was looking at his phone.

“What’s up?” Zuko responded, looking a bit concerned, the brow over his good eye raised quizzically.

“Um… I have a question of the day for you.” Zuko rolled his eyes fondly. The familiar gesture drained the tension out of Sokka’s body. This was Zuko. This was familiar territory, something they’d been doing since they were little.

“Do you - Are you… into guys?” Sokka asked, biting his lip. Zuko looked a bit taken aback at first but then took on a thoughtful look.

“Yeah, I think so. Why? Are you?” Zuko responded with a look in his eyes that Sokka couldn’t decipher.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am,” Sokka managed to admit, barely a whisper. There was something charged in the air filling the moment with importance, but what had changed, Sokka couldn’t tell.

**~AGE 22~**

It was the day after Zuko and Sokka had graduated from Ba Sing Se University, and they were at the beach, sitting in the back of Sokka’s SUV and watching the sunset as the sky became filled with streaks of gold and shades of pink. Zuko’s head was resting on Sokka’s shoulder and their fingers were intertwined. Although their futures were undefined, Sokka felt certain about one thing: he was exactly where he was supposed to be right now, here with Zuko, and he wanted to feel this way for the rest of his life. It had been four years since Zuko asked him to senior prom and they finally started dating, and Sokka found that he couldn’t remember a time without Zuko and didn’t want to.

“Hey Z, question of the day,” Sokka said, as Zuko took his head off Sokka’s shoulder and looked up with one of those dreamy smiles on his face that always made Sokka’s heart clench, “You wanna get married?” 

The question came to him so naturally, so spontaneously that he didn’t think twice until he noticed Zuko’s look of surprise. Sokka didn’t even have time to panic because as soon as the words came out he was tackled to the floor of the SUV and enveloped by Zuko’s embrace.

“Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes!” Zuko exclaimed, punctuating his words with a kiss. There was no engagement ring, no concrete plans for the future, but as Sokka returned Zuko’s tender kiss, he knew that it didn’t matter whatever questions lay ahead because Zuko would always be the answer.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading!! As always, your kudos and comments warm my heart. I hope you have a wonderful day and that someone makes you feel loved and appreciated today. If they don't I will 😡 YOU ARE LOVED AND APPRECIATED!!


End file.
